Loreley

The legend of Loreley is an inseparable part of the river’s history. The best-known version of the golden-haired beauty is the one depicted in Heinrich Heine’s poem that became part of the German heritage in the song composed by Friedrich Silcher.

Originally, Loreley was created as a literary image of passionate love. It was in a ballad written by the Rhineland poet Clemens Brentano that Loreley first appeared as a woman’s name. ‘Lore Lay’ was betrayed by her lover. On her way to the cloister, she wanted to take one last look at his castle from the Loreley rock. But when she imagined she saw him leaving in a boat, she threw herself into the river.

Brentano varied the Loreley theme a number of times. In his Rhine fairy tales, which he started to write in 1810, for the first time appears the motif of an unhappy blond woman sitting on a rock combing her hair.
Later, Loreley changed from a tragic ghostly figure into a femme fatale. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, she was portrayed by some poets as a Valkyrie-like national symbol. The literature of the 20th century has moved away from that motif, instead showing the figure in numerous ironical variations, thereby expanding further on the myth of Loreley.

Heinrich Heine – Die Lorelei

I wonder why I am so weary,
What´s making me so depressed,
It must be the tale old and dreary,
That´s keeping my mind quite obsessed.

The air is cool, night is sinking,
And quietly´s  flowing the Rhine,
The tops of the mountains are blinking,
In purple-red sun-setting shine.

There´s sitting high up in the light
A maiden so beautiful, fair
Her jewels are glistening bright
She combs her gold shimmering hair.

Her comb is of most precious gold,
She´s combing and singing so sweet
Bewitching young fishers and old
Their hearts start to quiver and beat.

There´s man in his boat on the river,
He cannot but listen and stare,
A longing is making him shiver,
Look out, the rock´s ledge, oh beware!

I fear there´s a crash, the boat sinking,
The man will be swallowed and gone,
And that with melodious singing
The Loreley will have done.

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